It’s hard to imagine that Kanye West dropped his debut album College Dropout 20 years ago. I remember going to Tower Records the night before so I could purchase it right when the clock struck midnight. For those that don’t remember those days, albums used to drop on Tuesdays. Tower Records would stay open until midnight on Monday nights just so customers could purchase the new releases once they were officially out on Tuesday. And on Monday, February 9, 2004, it was a young Kanye West’s debut CD that was releasing on Tuesday, February 10, 2004 which had me at Tower ready to buy the album. After waiting with a handful of people in the store, I made my purchase that night, quickly hopped into my car, opened the CD packaging, inserted the CD in my car stereo and started reading through the liner notes of the CD booklet. And the rest was history… On February 10, 2004, Kanye West brought a breath of fresh air into the hip hop scene with the classic album, College Dropout.
In 2024, the majority of folks over the age of 30 thinks of Kanye as an idiot and pay him no mind and they can have that opinion. And if you’re under the age of 30, you look at Kanye as a god for the Yeezy brand alone. But me? Well… let me break it down to you like this. Kanye is a straight up legend. And yes he has had more than a few moments (VMA’s, MAGA stuff, antisemitic remarks, his rants, etc.) that probably cancelled him in your mind but let’s slow it down real quick. Let’s separate the music from the man for a hot sec. Kanye is bipolar after all so I’d hope you’d be able to cut him just a little bit of slack here. When was the last time you looked at Kanye’s production credits? You do realize that he helped Jigga take it to another level on The Blueprint right? Can’t forget Just Blaze here when talking about that album but Kanye’s production with the sped up chipmunk style soul samples changed the game the same way Puff did with his sampling for Biggie and Bad Boy in the 90’s. Just listen to Kanye’s beat right here for “This Can’t Be Life” off of Jay-Z’s The Dynasty album. This was the work Kanye was putting in before College Dropout came out. This is how Kanye was building buzz and this beat is a work of art….
Kanye didn’t just fall into success either. Before the fame, he was grinding in Chicago making beats everyday in hopes of one day making it big. In the 90’s he linked up with No I.D. who was an established producer in Chicago for his work with Common Sense (aka Common) and Kanye quickly realized he has found his mentor. Kanye learned how to make beats from No I.D. at the age of 15 and soaked up as much game as he could from the producer. Kanye put in work in Chicago working with local artists and formed a rap group called the Go-Getters while also linking up and serving as a ghost producer for D-Dot aka The Madd Rapper who eventually managed and mentored a young Kanye West. D-Dot worked his way from being an intern at Bad Boy Records all the way to becoming the head of the A&R department in the span of 5 years. A young Kanye was not only knocking out beats on the daily but he was also hustling to network with the right people to help take him to the top.
While Kanye was building some buzz as a producer, he really wanted to be known as a rapper but nobody was taking him seriously. His ghost producing for D-Dot got his beats heard by the legends of the game which included Jay-Z, Mase, Jermaine Dupri, Foxy Brown, Beanie Sigel, and more. But nobody was trying to hear Kanye rap. No record companies wanted to sign Kanye to a record deal. Record labels didn’t know how to market Kanye. He didn’t sell drugs and he didn’t rock baggy jeans so Kanye rockin’ pink polos and preppy clothes was so far removed from what record execs viewed as marketable. It wasn’t until Roc-A-Fella Records finally took a chance on him with a record deal that he got his shot as a rapper. At the very minimum, they knew they had an in-house producer that would make their entire roster of rappers flourish and that was enough for Dame Dash to take that chance.
Kanye started working on College Dropout back in 1999 and it took him 4 years to put the finishing touches on his debut album. But before the singles and the album dropped, true hip hop heads knew of him through his production credits along with his mixtapes, Get Well Soon… in 2002 and I’m Good in 2003. While Kanye didn’t have an album to pick up in stores in the early 2000’s, these 2 mixtapes created plenty of buzz about him as a rapper. I was burning these CD’s left and right and sending them in the mail to all of my homies so they could get up on Kanye before the rest of the world did. It was clear to see that Kanye was special.
If you were a fan of hip hop in the 2000’s, you were a fan of Kanye West. But ask 95% of those fans if they’re still digging Kanye and they’ll tell you, “I miss the old Kanye”. Well no shit… Dude dropped 5 albums in a row that can be considered classics (Yes, 808s & Heartbreak too!), he resurrected Common’s career with Be (those beats???), he helped bring Lupe and Kid Cudi to the masses, and then oh yeah, he dropped Watch the Throne in 2011 with Jay-Z. He has given us a minimum of 4 classics in that run and yet people still want to say that they miss the old Kanye? Dude gave you cuts for years and then you expect to him just stay in one lane and never evolve as an artist? You expect him to be making “Gold Digger 2” here in the 2020’s? Nah, I’m good on that. I’ll collectively say that we’re all good on that. I loved that Kanye even made a track called “I Love Kanye” off of The Life of Pablo to address this. That track perfectly captured everybody’s comments about Kanye. The version on the album was an acapella but here’s the vocals with a nice beat underneath.
The fact that we’re still talking about an artist and how relevant they are 20 years after their debut album is impressive. Kanye’s first few albums are forever classics and he’s one of the few artists who has been in the game 20+ years and when they drop a new album, you just have to give it a quick run through to see if there are any hits. This week we have Kanye dropping his new album, Vultures with Ty Dolla $ign as the super-duo, ¥$. Will this probably get delayed again? Of course. Will I still be checkin to see if it drops? Absolutely. But this article isn’t about the new album (which I feel is going to be fire). It’s about the 20th anniversary of College Dropout and Yeezy’s longevity in the game.
If you tried to make a Kanye West greatest hits playlist, you’d quickly realize that you’ll be at work for awhile researching and compiling all of his best tracks. He has won 24 Grammy Awards so just stop and let that sink in for a minute. He has sold over 160 million records and his songs have been streamed over 40 billion times. Straight up putting numbers on the boards! Below you’ll find my favorite Kanye West tracks which includes songs from his albums as well as features on other artists’ tracks and beats he made. This includes old Kanye and new Kanye and probably has some tracks you missed over the years.
But going back to the early 2000’s, I think about all of the tracks that were floating around on the Kanye mixtapes that never saw the light of day on College Dropout. These were some of the songs that remain unreleased and can’t be found where you stream your music. These were some of the original versions of tracks or were remixes that had to be changed before they appeared on College Dropout. These are tracks that I feel truly capture “the old Kanye” that I feel a lot of fans just don’t know about. So in honor of the 20 year anniversary of College Dropout, here are my favorite unreleased tracks of his from the early 2000’s.
“Through the Wire” (The OG Version)
Kanye originally recorded “Through the Wire” 2 weeks after his car accident that left his mouth wired shut. On the OG recording of the track, his mouth was still wired shut which made this track raw AF. When College Dropout was officially released, the jaw-wired-shut vocals were no longer on the track as he re-recorded his verses.
“My Way”
How did this not make it on College Dropout? Sample clearance issues?
“Apologize”
Newer heads probably know this beat from Tyler and A$AP Rocky’s track “Potato Salad” but this originally came from a Monica track called “Knock Knock” which Kanye and Missy Elliott produced. Both tracks are dope! Kanye just had to run with the beat himself and lace it with some vocals.
“Home”
This track eventually got released on Graduation as “Homecoming” with a completely different beat and Chris Martin from Coldplay on the chorus. I think we know which version wins though right?
“Out the Game” (feat. Consequence & John Legend)
+
“I Met Oprah Winfrey”
A beat so nice, Kanye had to run it back twice!
“Half Price”
Vintage Kanye right here. Witty rhymes over a soulful beat. This is him in his lane.
“All Falls Down” (OG Version)
There’s the version with the Lauryn Hill sample but this is the real OG version that has a totally different vibe and an added verse. The final version of “All Falls Down” that made the album was a smash so all 3 versions were great.
“Heavy Hitters” (feat. GLC)
This was always one of my favorites from the early mixtapes. Found out later that this was a bonus track included on the Japan release of College Dropout. GLC should have blown up. He always stood out on his features.
“Never Letting Go”
I had never heard this one but came across it through my research for this article. This is clean right here.
What tracks did I miss from this era? What are some of your favorite unreleased Kanye tracks? Drop them in the comments and give me some more smashes to listen to!